Today in Yiddishkayt
What happened in Yiddishkayt on this day in history? Who was born today? Whose yortsayt is observed? Learn about major figures in European Jewish culture.
Read More1/30 | Birthday of Isaak Dunayevsky
Today in Yiddishkayt… January 30 Birthday of Isaak Dunayevsky, Composer The popular Soviet composer Isaak Dunayevsky was born January 30, 1900 in the shtetl of Lokhvitza (today Лохвиця, Ukraine) not far from the provincial capital of Poltava. He entered the Kharkov Musical Conservatory in 1910 and had a rigorous classical training, studying violin under Josef Achron (who was interested in fusing Jewish musical elements into his compositions), and took musical theory with the musicologist and composer Semyon Bogatyrev. After graduating, he worked as a violinist and conductor...
Read More12/26 | Premiere of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, 1936
Today in Yiddishkayt… December 26 75th Anniversary of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra Premiere In 1933, confronted with the mass discrimination against Jewish cultural figures and their eventual dismissal from all German institutions (and later from elsewhere in Europe), the Polish Jewish violin virtuoso, Bronisław Huberman conceived of the creation of a new orchestra. He recruited 75 great musicians from around Europe, brought them to Palestine to form what would become the Palestine Symphony Orchestra. Although an internationalist and rather anti-Zionist, Huberman resigned from...
Read More12/13 | World Premiere of An American in Paris
Today in Yiddishkayt… December 13 World Premiere of An American in Paris George Gershwin was born to Rose and Morris Gershovitz (later Gershvin, before settling on Gershwin) on Snediker Avenue (just off Pitkin Ave) in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Before “crossover” was a common term, Gershwin was the King of Crossover: crossing boundaries of popular and symphonic, Jewish and African-American, European and American. His symphonic composition An American in Paris had its premiere at Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928. The program notes for the concert began: “You are to...
Read MoreListen. Dance. Learn. Play. Yiddish Lives!
A Yiddishkayt promotional video, designed and edited by Amanda Leigh Goodman, 2010.
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